6 Ways Edward Berger Turned a Pope Drama into a ’70s Thriller

The process of choosing the next Pope is not the stuff of a traditional thriller. And while “Conclavefilled with political intrigue Edward BergerThe 2016 adaptation of Robert Harris’s book of the same name doesn’t feature the conspiracies or underlying fears of violence that are hallmarks of the paranoid 1970s political thrillers that the director apes in this film. movie.

While Berger was at Toolkit IndieWire podcast he talked about director Alan Pakula’s films like Parallax View and All the President’s Men, and how he used different cinematic tools to create his story conclave Cardinals feels like a 70s paranoid thriller.

Creeping into the brain of Cardinal Lawrence

Until a new Pope is elected, the burden of administering the work of the conclave falls on one man, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who had religious doubts – we learn that he even tried unsuccessfully to resign from his post before the death of the Pope.

“He doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to do, if he’s the right person, if he should be there, if he should be somewhere else,” Berger said. “I think a lot of people can identify with that feeling of doubt: ‘Can I do something else?’ So (the character of Ralph) made me passionate about this project.”

As serious questions are raised about the leading candidates and factions begin to form, rumors of unrest spread right outside the Vatican. How to experience this mounting pressure through Fiennes’ character became the guiding principle for how Berger crafted his compositions and shot list.

“Ralph is going through this right now, and how do I imagine it? How can I make you feel what he feels?'” Berger said, describing the process of compiling the list of candidates. “The Catholic Church is ritual-based, so that means you’re doing the same thing over and over again, and that’s why I storyboarded it to make sure we always had different ideas for each scene depending on how Ralph develops your feelings. »

Cardinal Lawrence is present in almost every scene of Conclave, and Berger wanted every scene to be seen and heard from his point of view. Even when talking about other members of the ensemble, the shots were crafted with Lawrence’s emotional point of view in mind. This was especially important during the rather static and silent process of the cardinal’s six voting scenes.

“When I shot these scenes, each actor had one close-up or one medium shot, depending on whether Ralph had probably five different angles,” Berger said. “Depending on who he was looking at, the camera had to be in a different position. Depending on how he felt, it had to be behind him or above him. Basically, I filmed him from all angles at certain moments, knowing that I would need it to get into his brain.”

Edits so harsh they hurt

The process of electing a new Pope is an anti-thriller: a repetitive ritual that is neither particularly dynamic nor cinematic – not many cardinals vote, and repeated voting until a two-thirds majority is achieved is a fairly stationary process.

“What makes this movie different is that it’s so static that people are basically sitting around talking,” Berger said. “And why move the camera so much?”

Part of Berger’s careful storyboarding was to ensure he could be precise in his editing (telling IndieWire that he likes it when editing is so sharp it almost hurts) to move the film forward and engage the viewer.

“The person I learned it from (the most) is Pakula. If you watch Parallax, you have Warren Beattyone of the biggest stars of the ’70s, the producer of the film, he stands with his back to the camera in the dark for two minutes,” Berger said. “And then in a very specific line or reaction he cut to (a) close-up or medium shot, that edit had such a profound effect – I listen and lean in and say, ‘Oh, what is Warren Beatty thinking?’ ? How does he feel? How will this affect him? And it’s so cool that it makes you bend over more.”

Berger pointed to the director of “Blitz” Steve McQueen like another director who analyzes with his camera (“his eye is sharp and analytical”). Berger said that for all the dialogue in Conclave, it was important to avoid filming coverage and editing patterns and shooting patterns, but, like McQueen and Pakula, to find and zoom in on the moments when Fiennes’ editing (or cutting it off) cuts deepest into his effect on the audience.

Counter-account

Composer Volker Bertelmann’s score is crucial as it tells the audience how to interact with the story on screen. Conclave is Berger and Bertelmann’s fifth film together. This collaboration is based on the concept of counter-accounting, which was key to turning the church setting into a thriller.

“Give me a score that is unusual, unexpected and not churchy,” Berger said of the score. “I value what’s inside (Lawrence’s) stomach more than what I see in the image, and if it has nothing to do with location and image, so much the better.”

Bertelmann’s music propels the story forward, often giving scenes a sense of movement and speed, tapping into the swirling emotions beneath static scenes of well-mannered cardinals in a formal historical setting.

“We added music early on, but it was very late because I suddenly thought we weren’t telling the audience how to interact with this movie yet,” Berger said.

Creating a Paranoid Isolated Space

The creators of Conclave always knew that they would have to recreate the Sistine Chapel on the sound stage – the famous dome painted by Micalango, where the vote of the cardinals could not be cheated elsewhere. In contrast to the Sistine Chapel, the rather ordinary Casa Santa Marta, the living quarters where the cardinals are isolated, is cold, modern and ordinary – something that one would think could be recreated on site. But creating the soundstage interior was crucial for Berger in creating the thriller.

“I couldn’t find these corridors, I needed really long (corridors),” Berger said. “The movie is called Conclave and it’s about being locked in, so you need a hallway and rooms that feel closed in.”

The setting, similar to the Cardinals’ dormitory, required long, narrow rooms that had no windows or natural light, and created a space that had a distinct feel when photographed. At the end of the film, Berger said that after the new Pope is chosen and the shutters are opened, he wants there to be a feeling of liberation. The film would have been a success if audiences, like Lawrence, felt the same sense of relief and liberation that comes with a breath of fresh air.

“Ralph goes through this journey of being locked in, feeling claustrophobic,” Berger said. “For me, this is a paranoid conspiracy thriller from the 70s. It’s like an Alan Pakula movie, like Parallax, and that’s the kind of movie I wanted to make.”

The walls have ears

Berger also used sound to reveal Fiennes’ character’s paranoia. “He’s locked in, he feels pressure, he’s being watched, the walls have ears,” said Berger, who achieved this by capturing the feeling of listening in a confined space. “It gets very quiet and you can hear the neon lights buzzing.”

Like the characters, Berger’s cell remains inside the conclave. The outside world, from which the audience and the cardinals are isolated, is still an additional source of pressure on Cardinal Lawrence. Not only are there reports of unrest, but the ticking clock of a huge crowd gathered at the gates in eager anticipation as the burden of the future of the Catholic Church rests on his shoulders.

“We played a lot with the sound by having helicopters fly over the camera,” Berger said. “You’re trying to get into Ralph’s head, he won’t see the helicopters, the cheering of the crowd, the feelings of hundreds of thousands of people in St. Petersburg Square who come there and wait to see: ‘Who’s the next guy?’

Plot twists based on infallibility

One of Berger’s concerns is that audiences will take the historical setting of the Vatican and put on a pedestal characters who are the highest leaders of the religion. Part of what keeps audiences on the edge of their seats is the film’s twists and turns, which are rooted in the infallibility of the characters—every cardinal vying for the highest office has something in their past that they try and fail to hide under scrutiny. selection process. That’s why, early in the film, when the Pope dies, Berger makes sure that we see that even the Holy Father himself is just flesh and bones, downplaying the gravity of the moment by focusing his camera on the process of caring for the dead body. and difficulty removing jewelry.

“He’s been wearing that ring for probably 10 to 15 years now, he’s probably gotten fatter and older,” Berger said. “They’re trying their best, they want to be very respectful to this guy, but they’re still struggling to get the damn ring off. I think I’m just interested in making him human.”

At the beginning of the film, Berger wanted the audience to see those who work and live in the Vatican, despite the ancient robes, have cell phones and engage in the same mundane aspects of modern life as the audience. He also highlighted how medics treated the deceased Pope, zipping him up in a plastic bag like any other dead body.

“I love it when all this archaic architecture suddenly appears plastic, modern, they are just part of our lives and there is no reason to put them on a pedestal,” Berger said. “These are people who are simply made with all their mortal errors.”

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